Dark Souls 3 Gamescom Hands-On Preview

Dark Souls 3 has been shown to the press several times already, but this is the first time anyone has had the chance to actually play it. We were at the booth in Cologne during the Gamescom 2015 demo, and were lucky enough to have the opportunity to play it ourselves.


We were dropped into a sprawling medieval castle slowly being overtaken by vegetation – branches growing from between pieces of stone, grass where there should be none – and a giant white dragon resting on the walls, with Hollows praying to it.

The first thing I noticed is that the game is much faster and more aggressive than the previous ones – the pace and heft of the combat felt more akin to Bloodborne than the other Souls games, more frantic and unpredictable than slow and deliberate. Hopefully the tone will reflect this.

Aggressiveness paid off every time, and the speed with which enemies rushed me left no place for scoping out a situation before entering a fight. It seems fighting multiple enemies will be more common than before – a regular obstacle instead of a nerve-wracking catastrophe.The enemies didn’t do much damage to the demo character, so people mostly carelessly entered into combat without even trying to block or dodge incoming attacks. This was probably to blame on the level and equipment of the character. I hope so, at least.

There’s much to be excited about here, but there’s also much we don’t know. We didn’t get the chance to explore the world, talk to the NPCs or try to get a feel for anything outside of combat. There are no real faults in the demo you could put your finger on, but it was just a brief glimpse into the game. It’s supposed to launch in 2016, so we’ll just have to wait and see.